First of all, if you are new to the Sunday league please have a read of the article in the latest Striding Report, and when you're done with that email the following details:

- Name
- Surname
- Date of Birth

to me at thestridingreport@gmail.com so we can add you to the official register.

North West Cross Country Sunday League:

26th October Penny Lane Striders Clarkes Gardens
30th November Pensby Runners Arrowe Park
28th December Knowsley Harriers Stadt Moers Park
11th January Warrinton R R Town Park
1st February Skelmersdale B H Beacon Park
22nd February Spectrum Striders Forest Park

Please note all races start at 10am (including Arrowe Park!)

There are a couple of clashes with popular road races we could not avoid (let's face it there was a race or another on practically every weekend), the two that immediately spring to mind are:

Ribble Valley 10k on 28 December
Alsager 5M on 1st February

If you are planning out your racing calendar steer clear from these as the times will not count towards the club championship. There may be other races on other dates I've not come across so if that sort of thing is important to you please watch out.

L&D fixtures are on:
Sat 25 October – Race 1 Beacon Park Skelmersdale
Sat 29 November – Race 2 UK Cross Country Challenge Sefton Park
Sat 13 December – Race 3 Stadt Moers
Sun 08 February – L&D Championships Clarke Gardens

Other xc dates:
Sat 03 January – Merseyside xc Championships Sherdley Park St Helens
Sat 24 January – Northern xc Championships venue tbc
Sat 21 February – English CC Championship venue tbc

Any questions please contact me by email, facebook or see me on club nights

Also some feedback from the annual meeting:

A discussion took place regarding the amalgamation of Warrington, Helsby and Lymm with the suggestion that Lymm may like to stand alone from this season. [I think Lymm should read Helsby but you get the gist]

However, following a review of the results for last season and discussion, it was agreed to leave the position as it stands with a further review at the end of the season.

A request was made to consider different start times for the Men’s and Ladies’ races due to some congestion in the early stages of some of the races. Although considered a good idea, it was considered that this could cause its own problems, and again it was agreed to leave the joint start as it is.

Once again it was requested for all Clubs to advise their runners that Club vests MUST be worn at all races. ANY RUNNER NOT WEARING CLUB KIT WILL NOT BE GIVEN A FINISHING TALLY.

Clubs were requested to ensure that new members’ details must be sent to Steve Saunders at least one week before the start of the season in order to be able to produce the results on a timely basis. Steve will forward to each Club the current lists held on file for addition/deletions.

Gill Darby had put forward a suggestion that now that we have so many people attending these races, women start ahead of the men to split the field a little, especially at races such as Beacon and Arrowe Park where we do experience noticeable bottlenecks. After some discussion it was decided that it's better to have everyone race together but instead try and change the course at these venues to see if the field can be broken up a bit more before the parts of the trail likely to cause congestion. This part of the discussion however is not reflected in the minutes so I will feed this back to the Chairman.


In the meantime please look out for requests for marshals. We will need a few volunteers to marshal the course, help out at Cheshire Lines, hand out finishing tokens and help set up and clear the race site at our own fixture on Sunday 26 October. If you are injured, not running etc. please come down to lend a hand. Bring family and/or friends. If your family can't stand running or you do not have any friends come by yourself, that's what I usually do. There'll be chocolate.

So Arrowe Park is the day after the Euro Cross in Sefton?

I know you can't please everyone but that's annoying.

I know John. Two of the clubs in the league have a training camp in the lakes mid November, and lots of people apparently do the Benidorm half - this came up from another two of the clubs present.

That pretty much ruled out 16th and 23rd. They wanted us to have our fixture either on 12 October or on 2nd November so the latter date was out of it during the meeting - in the end I couldn't get Cheshire Lines. 9th Nov clashed with the Borders League; some of the clubs participate in that, which further restricted the dates.

Trust me I'm not over the moon about the 30th either as I will be in Florence that weekend, but it really couldn't be helped. No-one was keen on having one in the run up to Christmas, also because then that would bring on 3 clashes with the L&D and 7th December is a clash with Borders.

It was like cross country Sudoku.

In the end we agreed that the clash with the Euros was the lesser of the various evils. I will bear that in mind for next year though, in fact I'm going to ask that clubs perhaps schedule their training camps before the start of the season so that doesn't become an issue as it has this year.

Christina, thank you for all your work in setting up the fixtures for the X/C its nigh impossible to set up all the dates without clashing in on other events.We will just turn up and enjoy our season, and just to add to those who have not done X/C before it can be cold and wet but its is great fun and a fantastic team event.put your vest on and support your club. see you there.